Banal Nadas
by EvanescingSky
Summary: After escaping the Fade at Adamant, Lavellan seeks to address Solas' greatest fear.
1. Lavellan POV

Solas was on his couch, reading. Of all the companions who had plunged with her into the Fade, he was the least concerned—which did not come as a great surprise. If anything, Solas had seemed almost fatally interested in hanging around to study it. They had gotten to talking about dreamers and Lavellan had to remind him they did need to _escape_. The others, she had checked in on again since their return to Skyhold. Dorian, as was his habit, had buried himself in research. Lavellan had spent four unexpected hours in the library discussing it with him, and searching for additional information to assist his search. Vivienne and Iron Bull had both been deeply unsettled and Lavellan had spent similarly lengthy times with each of them talking through it. Vivienne would barely admit, even to Guinevere, how unnerving she had found the Fade, but Lavellan could read it in her eyes and the choice of her words. Bull was fairly open about hating every second they spent there. That was easier to work out—particularly with Cassandra's help.

At no point during or after the Fade did Solas seem like he _needed_ Guinevere to talk him through any of it. She had seen him up with Dorian a few times since, undoubtedly sharing his insight into the experience, but as he so often did, he seemed infinitely calmer and more at ease than anyone else.

Still, calm waters often ran deep, and there was something Gwen wanted to address.

The tiny graveyard still hovered in the back of her mind. They always stayed within eyeshot of each other in the Fade—terrified of being separated and lost—but there was some necessity to spread out, trying to feel their way through the shifting landscape towards the only exit they could make a guess about. When she had happened across the fenced-in little plot, something about it held her back from calling out to the others. Seeing that the miniscule headstones were engraved with the names of her friends made her think it was just some petty trick of the Nightmare's, trying to shake her with the thought of their deaths, as if she had not considered them a thousand times before, as if they did not already haunt her nightmares, and flash across her eyes every time the Inquisition was unsuccessful in its efforts. She had almost walked away without looking closer, seeing the other inscriptions.

Temptation.

Madness.

Irrelevance.

Even her own, right in line with how the demon taunted her: _Failure._ Afraid to fail at being the keeper. Afraid to let her clan down. Afraid to lose to Corypheus. Afraid to be an ineffective Inquisitor. It wasn't hard to dig up fears of Guinevere's.

Maybe that was why it didn't feel like she was being exposed, so much as shamed. No one, she thought, would be surprised to know her greatest fears. Others seemed considerably more revealing. "_Varric—became his parents_" for instance. Seeing those little subheadings drew her in, and Solas had to come fetch her away when Vivienne and Hawke had determined the best way forward.

Now she had stood so long looking at him she thought he would take notice, but he was deeply buried in his book, and Lavellan almost walked away. It would be easier to say nothing—it was often easier to say nothing. But she could not turn away from a fear of her sweetheart's that she hoped to assuage.

Lavellan eased down onto the sofa, squeezing onto the narrow strip available, her hip pressed against his thigh.

"_Lethallin_," she said softly. She had startled him from his focus when she sat, which was not unusual—Solas had an incredible ability to get lost in his own head even when he was awake. Which was how he ended up doing things like setting his tunic on fire or putting up a tent with just the poles.

"Hello, _ma vhenan_," he said, giving her a tiny smile that didn't quite penetrate the gray fog that so often obscured his eyes. Some days, it felt like there were oceans of Solas she did not know. "How are you?" Lavellan looked down and slid the book from his hands. She set it aside and took one of his hands between hers, massaging her thumbs against the fine bones and tendons in the back of his hand for a moment. Such nice hands, with long, elegant fingers and callouses from all his casting—more than once she had seen him twirling his staff in a way that could not possibly have been _practical_. "Is something wrong, Guinevere?" he asked lowly, trying to meet her eyes, when she said nothing.

"You won't be alone," she blurted out, lifting her eyes. There was puzzlement in his brow that made her think he had not noticed the writing on the tiny graves when he went to pull her away. Perhaps he had not seen—did not know that she knew.

"When?" he asked.

"When you—" Saying it aloud felt like breathing a curse into the world. No—there was too much at stake. She would not give even passing credence to Solas' death. "You won't be alone. I'll be with you." Now she would not look away from his gaze, and even if he had not seen what she saw, he knew what she was talking about.

"The fear demon told you something," he guessed.

_Solas—dying alone._

"It did," she said. "But you don't have to be afraid." She lifted a hand to his cheek, spotted by the sun. "I won't let that happen, my love." Solas looked away, and swallowed hard, his fingers closing around her hand. Solas did not _avoid_ sharing his feelings with her, necessarily, but he certainly kept them close to his chest. His fears were not things they spoke of often.

"We don't always have a choice about these things," he murmured.

"I won't let it," Guinevere repeated, with all the assurance in her voice of one sharing a known fact. She gripped his hand with both of hers. Solas' gaze moved back to her face and at least twice, she thought he meant to speak, but he did not. In the end, he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers, closing those eyes in which so many thoughts flickered like a shoal of fish glinting in the sunlight of a cloudy day.

"_Ar lath, ma vhenan_," he whispered.

"I know," Lavellan replied in a murmur, placing her hand against his cheek again. She could feel the slight scars and pockmarks from adventures of his that she had not seen, and took comfort in their familiarity. Someday, she would know every inch of his body as well as her own, and they would have no fears left for the demons to feed on. "And I won't leave you. Not for anything."

That day, Lavellan inscribed a new fear on Solas' heart.


	2. Solas POV

Dying alone—hadn't he already done that? When he dropped violently into _uthenera_, isolated, cutting himself off from the rest of the Elvhen, to wake in dust and ruins, was that not a death? Had a part of him not died waking to see what he had done to The People, what had become of the world? Had not a thousand bits of him died with each step he had taken into Thedas, piecing together the magnitude of his failure? A little more with each day, throwing himself desperately at an effort to restore some part of the world he knew, to bring back something familiar? Could he still fear something that had already happened?

But then—Guinevere. She had bloomed so slowly and unobtrusively that he hadn't noticed, until one day he turned to see her petals extended in radiance, the sight of her a tincture for his aching soul. Then, he knew, it was too late. Lavellan had breathed life back into those parts of him he thought were dead and gone, that he had cast off, just another loss in his quest to restore the Elvhen. But Lavellan had picked them up, brushed the dust of old temples and ruined palaces from them, and tenderly restored them to life. With treacherous feet and sparkling eyes, she tempted him away from the _din'anshiral_, and his weak heart fought to stay true.

_Dirth ma, harellan. Ma banal enasalin. Mar solas ena mar din._

Nothing was inevitable—but what other sad boasts could a lone figure offer to such a demon? If Lavellan had understood what the Nightmare said to him, she had not addressed it. He had not given her the chance, but it was easy to avoid her when she was seeing to their companions who had fallen with them into the Fade. Several days passed this way, and he began to think he would skate by with Lavellan assuming he was simply not bothered by the trip.

For what could he say to her?

No matter how she loved him, she would still die. By his own hand, she would perish, along with her world, and everyone in it. And someday, before those bright, curious eyes shut for the last time, she would know his treachery. She would die knowing how he had lied to her. Lavellan, with her gentle hands and quiet courage and devotion to the elves, would end her life on the spear of one of Fen'harel's tricks, pierced through the breast by a slow arrow she never saw coming.

Lavellan would die—so would Blackwall, and Cassandra, and Varric, and possibly Cole—so would everyone he knew in the Inquisition. Sera, who filled his bedroll with lizards, and Iron Bull, who played a brutal game of chess, and Dorian, who could always make Lavellan laugh, even when Solas failed. Vivienne, ever the iron arm for Lavellan to lean on, and sweet-tempered Josephine, and Leliana, fighting so _hard_ to uphold her faith in the midst of chaos.

In his rotunda, he sat on the couch with a book propped against one knee, but if someone had asked him what book it was, he would not have been able to answer. The sudden dip in the couch surprised him and he looked up to hear her voice.

"_Lethallin_." Softly, trying not to startle him. It didn't work, but she tried. His heart _ached_ in a way that seemed to reach back into his past, placing his pain for her into memories where he had never known her. Lavellan spoke to him as no one else did, as, perhaps, no one ever had.

"Hello, _ma vhenan_," he greeted her, keeping his voice to her volume. Her brow was smooth, but there was trouble in those big brown eyes—Lavellan worried for him. The thought of it occasionally made him almost hysterical—_she_ worried for _him!_ He tamped it down, as always. "How are you?" In his efforts to avoid her, he had not checked in to see how _she_ was doing since their escapade in the Fade. There were times when a word from him could soothe the anxiety from Lavellan's face, when the touch of his hand could expel the tension from her shoulders, but it was not so now. Without speaking, she took the unread book from his hands and set it aside. Then she took one of his hands between hers, rubbing her thumbs against the back of his hand, massaging the delicate bones and tendons. Her hands were cool, and he could feel the callouses she had built up from such frequent and aggressive use of her staff during their travels. Guinevere had been a healer among the Lavellan, but the Herald of Andraste needed to turn her magic to more offensive uses. Still, the care in them remained—when she healed their party's wounds, or attended the sick in Inquisition camps, or taught Cole how to tie a ribbon. Her eyes studied his hands, and he could see there was a weight on her chest. "Is something wrong, Guinevere?" he asked in a low voice, tilting his head to try to meet her downcast gaze.

Her response was abrupt and startled him anew.

"You won't be alone." It rushed out of her as she met his eyes, giving the impression she had been thinking it a long while before saying it. A frown turned down his mouth. _Had_ she understood what the Nightmare was saying? A spark of panic flared in the center of his chest, but he brushed it away. By now, he was used to those—so far, none had come to anything. Only Vivienne had come annoyingly close to poking real holes in his story.

"When?" he asked.

"When you—" Lavellan cut off whatever she had meant to say, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. Her hands tightened over his. "You won't be alone," she repeated. "I'll be with you." Her eyes burned and suddenly, Solas found it difficult to look at them.

"The Nightmare told you something," he said. Either it had whispered something privately into her head, or she had understood enough of what it said to him to draw conclusions. For the first time, he wished he had not spent so much time teaching and improving Lavellan's Elvish.

_Ma banal enasalin. _

"It did," she confirmed. "But you don't have to be afraid." And again! A hand lifted to his cheek, caressing, as though she could soothe away his fears. "I won't let that happen, my love." The searing intensity of her gaze had grown in tenderness, but it had not gentled at all. He could not look at her any longer and turned away, grasping the hand on his face and lowering it back to his lap.

"We don't always have a choice in these things," he murmured. He was the only Elvhen left—the only one who could wake the others. It did not matter how Lavellan sang in the very beat of his heart, flowed through the blood of his own veins—her death was a necessary casualty for the survival of the elven people. There was no one else who could do it.

"I won't let it," Lavellan insisted. She gripped his hand between hers, more tightly than before, and in her voice, he heard a glimmer of the steeliness Leliana and Cassandra wanted to see from the leader of the Inquisition. Once before, when Clan Lavellan was under threat in Wycome, he thought she had had it in her to burn the whole city to the ground if that was what it took to keep her clan safe. It was that sort of power he heard in her voice now, and it was frightening. He turned his gaze back to her, and tried to speak.

Guinevere loved him. This was irrefutable. She had not said it, as he had confessed to her on the balcony months ago, but it was impossible to deny even so. She loved him, and meant to die by his side, and he would repay her for her loyalty and devotion by pressing a knife into her back. In exchange for the unconditional love she had freely offered him, despite his reservations, despite his evasiveness, despite his oddities, he would make a fool of her, and bring down horror and desolation upon the world she was trying so hard to save. In one hand, he caressed her hand, and with the other, he held a blade to her throat. The worst of it was that she would be shocked to know—not because she did not believe in Fen'harel, but because she did believe in _Solas._ In his goodness and the better angels of his nature and the harmless front he had presented to her.

Lavellan loved who he wanted to be, but if she knew who he _was_….

"_Ar lath, ma vhenan_." Unable to voice his thoughts, unable to formulate a convincing mistruth, unable to come up with any coherent words at all, he fell back on a simple truth. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers, and tried to take comfort in her solidness. She was _there_, she was _there_, and…and maybe if he told her this often enough, she would still believe him when the end came.

But perhaps it would have been kinder to lie.

"I know. And I won't leave you. Not for anything." Lavellan laid her hand against his cheek again, her fingertips soft and warm against the scars and spots that painted a mural of the years across his face. She spoke in the same whisper that Solas had used, and there was not an ounce of doubt in him that nothing else she said, nothing else that could possibly have come out of her mouth could have sent a more piercing and primal bolt of pure terror straight to the heart of him.

The Nightmare had nothing on Lavellan's ability to terrify him.


End file.
